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Topic: amount of toppings (Read 11614 times)

I love this site. It has helped me refine my techniques, and inspired me to buy a dough sheeter from Ebay (my wife hates you guys). Anyway I've been making pizza's every week for a month and I still run into the same problem. I no longer use my oven, it just doesn't get hot enough. I use my grill with a stone because it gets hotter than 700 degrees. My crust is perfect now that I use King Arthur BF. No, my problem is toppings. I have this tick where I can only eat pizza's with MOPS (mushrooms, onions, pepperoni/salami, and sausage). By the time I put all my ingredients on the pizza it'll cook and the crust is thin and crispy, but it's piled too high and slightly soggy. My dad used to own pizza places in DFW in the 80's and I remember there was a formula or ratio about toppings, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was. any help?

Yep, I'm "par-baking" the crust prior to putting the toppings on. That brings up an interesting question, given that my grill get 700 degrees plus, why do we need to "par-bake" it? does blodgett ovens get that much hotter?

Yep, I'm "par-baking" the crust prior to putting the toppings on. That brings up an interesting question, given that my grill get 700 degrees plus, why do we need to "par-bake" it? does blodgett ovens get that much hotter?

nite2332,

Those are difficult questions to answer without knowing more about your dough recipe and especially the hydration of the dough. It is not necessary to use temperatures of 700 degrees F to make a cracker-style pizza, even one with a fair amount of toppings. To the best of my knowledge, the Blodgett ovens are not intended to operate at such high temperatures. Not too long ago, I did a lot of experimentation with cracker-style doughs in which I pre-baked the crusts and used normal home oven temperatures. In some cases I used a fair number and amounts of toppings. The thread where I posted my results, and where other members also posted their results, is this one: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5762.0.html. As you will see from that thread, there are many ways of baking the cracker-style pizzas, including cutter pan, stone, etc.

I used the same recipe I found on this site. The crust really does turn out to be amazing; probably better than 90% of other pizza restaurants in Dallas. And i buy the best ingredients available to me in Dallas (which is kinda wasteland, with occasional oasis's (sp?)) Jimmy's foodstore has the best sausage, pepperoni and cheese available. I think I get carried away, you know. I mean after browning that sausage all i want to do is put it all on a pizza. But I know that on a 12' , 15', and 18' inch pizza you have to use the appropriate amount of toppings. e.g. 4 oz of cheese, 2 oz of sausage and depending on the number of topping less or more . I'm really trying to perfect it because I'm just so disappointed on most of the pizza that I can order.

Jimmy's is also my favorite food store in Dallas. In fact, the pizza shown at Reply 128 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5762.msg53176.html#msg53176 included wild boar sausage from Jimmy's, along with several other toppings. I try not to go wild with the weights of toppings but I have been able to use pretty decent amounts. For the cracker style I also put the cheese down first and then the sauce. Also, I slice the cheese (block) into slices. I think these steps together with pre-baking the crust help keep the pizzas from getting soggy.

Something to consider about mushrooms is the storage accommodations. If they get too cold in storage, cell walls will have a greater tendency to burst since fungi cell membranes are composed of chitin. Chitin is more rigid than cellulose, the main component of plant cell membranes, so fractures could occur more readily at lower temperatures. Whenever I have a problem with pooling, it's exclusively due to the mushrooms getting too cold in the back of my refrigerator where they sometimes get pushed on occasion. Frozen mushrooms can even get slimy before putting them on the pizza and in the oven.

That makes sense. I have made it a routine to let all toppings, no matter what they are, come up to room temperature before using them, especially when they were stored in the fridge.

Pete,

The ceiling stone topped out around 650 F. The bottom had a temp around 700 F. Last time I used the LBE it got way too hot so I decided to bake at a lower temp. Besides that it was windy as hell here last night.

The ceiling stone topped out around 650 F. The bottom had a temp around 700 F. Last time I used the LBE it got way too hot so I decided to bake at a lower temp. Besides that it was windy as hell here last night.

Mike,

What I was thinking is that the high temperature above the pizza helped evaporate a lot of the water released by the mushrooms during baking. Commercial conveyor ovens don't operate at as high a temperature as your LBE, but hot air is forced across the top of the pizzas to get rid of a lot of the moisture released by the toppings. My home oven doesn't have that advantage.

The LBE does put out a good amount of heat but when you look at the amount of mushrooms that were on that pizza, which was only 11", I was still surprised it came out that way. Especially when the baking time was around 3 mins.

But I know what you mean. When I used that much mushrooms in my regular home oven, pizzas were always soggy in the middle. The problem lies partially, I think, with cheaper stones. I'm talking about the thin ones you can buy at Target or Bed & Bath. They're less than 1/2 inch thick which is totally inefficient, in my opinion.

Plus, I've read on numerous websites that sell pizza stones, that they'd draw moisture out of the dough. That's not true. The moisture still evaporates from the top.

I have two stones but I rarely use them together. For the cracker style, which is what got this thread started, there is no particular benefit to having a second stone. If I need more top heat, I just raise the pizza to a higher oven rack position. Where I have used two stones is where I was baking pizzas made from doughs with 00 flour (alone or as part of a blend). I typically used the two stones to create a "mini" oven within my regular home oven.

I'm sure it does draw out a certain amount of moisture out of the dough, otherwise the bottom wouldn't crisp up, right? What I meant was that the stones, especially the thin ones don't get rid of excessive moisture from the toppings. I could imagine that the stone's thickness is a major factor since they provide more mass, which in turn generates or radiates more heat? You're the science buff, so help me out here.

You'll probably laugh, but before I heard and read about LBEs, WFOs, the Hearth Kit and tricks to use the oven's cleaning cycle or thermostat modifications, I used a small blow torch to give the stones some extra boost!

I'm sure it does draw out a certain amount of moisture out of the dough, otherwise the bottom wouldn't crisp up, right? What I meant was that the stones, especially the thin ones don't get rid of excessive moisture from the toppings. I could imagine that the stone's thickness is a major factor since they provide a more mass, which in turn generates or radiates more heat? You're the science buff, so help me out here.

Yes, the dough and the toppings would be two entirely different things. The toppings on the pizza are not in contact with the stone. The thick stones won't get rid of excess moisture from toppings either for two reasons. The first is the surface area difference would be negligible. The second is that a stone is only going to absorb as much moisture as permitted by the temperature of the stone and the air surrounding it. Hot air has a high saturation point, so it can store a lot of moisture, more moisture on average than the stone can, so the water quickly evaporates into the oven's airspace and stays there.

The effects of more stone mass have been discussed extensively on this site. It basically means the stone can hold more thermal energy for longer baking or less time to recover between pizzas. It doesn't mean it can radiate or conduct it any faster. Stones certainly can't generate heat either. That's what the elements or flames are for.